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By M.S. Dodds

In the last two years, Charles Thompson -- known better to his fans as Frank Black or Black Francis -- has moved, divorced, remarried, put the Pixies back together and embarked on a hugely successful reunion tour, disbanded The Catholics, gone into psychotherapy, been awarded his second gold record (for Surfer Rosa), turned 40, and become a father. He also managed to write and record two solo albums in Nashville. One is not yet finished; the other, Honeycomb, has just been released.

Honeycomb is Black's first strictly solo record since 1996's The Cult Of Ray and it's a departure from any of Black's previous work by himself, with The Catholics, or with the Pixies. Where the Pixies reenergized and redefined indie rock post-punk, The Cult Of Ray sidestepped out from the Pixies, and Frank Black And The Catholics redefined Black as a passionate (and largely non-screaming) purveyor of guitar rock, Honeycomb recasts Black yet again.

This time, he's delving into Americana and doing so with the aid of Steve Cropper, Spooner Oldham, Reggie Young, Anton Fig, and David Hood (with guest appearances by Buddy Miller and Chester Thompson, among others). These are musicians whose collective histories lie in Stax Records, Muscle Shoals, and American Studios -- the three studios that have had the most far-reaching effect on American music in general, Southern soul music in particular. Produced by Jon Tiven, Honeycomb was recorded in four days just before the Pixies reunion tour. It was not only the first time Black has recorded in Nashville and the first he has ever worked with these musicians, it was also the first time that a lot of these musicians have ever worked together.

"I wanted to make my own version of Blonde On Blonde," Black explains in interview. "I like Dylan. I liked his Blonde On Blonde record. I know he went to Nashville to record it with a bunch of cats. I wanted to do that. It wasn't necessarily an impersonation of Bob Dylan, although I'm sure that there are a couple songs that are influenced by him. I knew it wasn't gonna sound like that. I'm not Bob Dylan. Those guys on the record aren't on Blonde On Blonde. There are enough factors that're gonna make it completely different."

He's right. Honeycomb doesn't sound like Blonde On Blonde, although it shares the move to country. In Black's case, he mellows and relaxes into a roots-soul groove with the unmistakable Black songwriting underpinnings that include minor keys and nonstandard time signatures. That's not a natural marriage and some of the 14 mostly midtempo tracks sound dragged to the altar by shotgun. But there are some that go together so smoothly they sound pre-ordained.

Black wrote the songs just before he arrived in Nashville; the band listened to the demos and nailed the songs within three takes. Black, who is used to recording quickly, was impressed.

"Those guys reek of mojo. They're just so . . ." Black takes a long pause before continuing, "cool. And you can't figure out if they know they're cool or if they don't. I mean, they must know at some level that they're great musicians. They were most impressive in their prowess. The record represents these guys never even having heard the song before. It was all Take One, Take Two, or Take Three. No rehearsal. I'd say about a third of the songs are Take One, say a third are Take Two, and a third are Take Three. I don't recall there being any Take Fours. And of those Take Ones that you hear, what you're hearing on the record is the band playing the song for the first time and also hearing the song for the first time. They have that much faith in their ability. They'd say, 'What's the tempo, Frank? One, two, three. O.K., I got it. What are the chords? Right. What's the song about? O.K. Got it.' And they just played it." Black laughs. "That was really something. I'd never been around anything like that before."

That level of skill can be intimidating, even for as experienced and, more importantly perhaps, as revered a musician in his own right as Black. "It's one of those times you just have to have some confidence in who you are and say, 'You know what? You guys wouldn't be here if I was just some flake, so stop worrying about it and just do your thing, man. They'll do their thing and we're gonna make a record.' You know, it's just a professional attitude one tries to have -- any musician tries to have when they go into a recording studio, whether they're famous or obscure. I've experienced that with a lot of musicians, a certain kind of unspoken professionalism. They don't care who you are, you don't care who they are, we're all just a bunch of guys in here trying to make something that sounds catchy," Black laughs. "You're humbled by the fact that there's just blank tape and whatever we do does have the potential to suck. So it's this great equalizer. No one really wants to go through the tedium of going, 'Yeah, this stinks. Maybe the song stinks. Maybe I stink today.' Everybody knows that that could happen, so it truly doesn't matter who you are. I don't think I've ever experienced anyone in a recording that was all caught up with their ego. 'Cause everybody knows, y'know? Everybody knows.

"It's always important to make a record. Even if I've got nothing to say, or even if it ends up being my least loved or lamest record," Black continues. "There's always a reason to make the record and that is, 'I'm a musician. That's what I do.' And you try your best and sometimes it's your best work and sometimes it isn't, and sometimes it's a lot of fun and sometimes it's a drag. You don't know what's gonna happen. You just have to do it and see. Hopefully, it's great. Hopefully, it's entertaining. Hopefully the lyrics are poignant. But it's hard to gauge. Or at least, I refuse to try to gauge it. I just go, 'Well, I think these songs are good. Let's just record them.'"

Not surprisingly, the songs on Honeycomb come out of the turmoil and discovery of Black's last couple years. "It's been up and down," Black says. "There've been a lot of great experiences and a lot of terrible experiences, y'know? Just all mixed up into one."

A big part of that, of course, has been the reunion tour with the Pixies. As recently as four years ago, publicists were still warning journalists not to mention the Pixies with Black. His turnaround -- casually mentioned in an interview every bit as nonchalantly and abruptly as he had announced the Pixies' demise years earlier -- was vintage Black. It also set off what was to become, musically and popularly, the most successful reunion tour in rock 'n' roll.

In less than a year, the Pixies went from dead to being treated and referred to as demi-gods. It's a new label for Black that he regards with some bemusement. "I don't know if we really are," Black says. "I mean it's nice that those kinds of words get thrown around in the press and everything and I suppose it's good publicity -- I mean, I know it's good publicity. I don't know what to say about it, you know. I guess I don't really have the words to say. I smile. I grin. It may even be a satisfied grin, but I don't really know what to say, except 'thank you.'"

Black has been upfront about liking the money and exposure the reunion tour has brought. A year later, it turns out that he's also been relishing the relationships. "I like hangin' out with my old bandmates and enjoying their company. I suppose especially Kim, because we never saw or spoke to each other the whole time we were on our sabbatical, so to speak, so it was a long time. To get back together and get along and enjoy each other's company -- it was nice to have a friendship back that maybe once I thought was gone. "

The strain between Deal and Black is the stuff of Pixies lore, not surprising since it's one of the main reasons cited for the band break up. Yet after more than a year of intense touring, those tensions haven't resurfaced. "You know, we're older," Black says. "I had issues as a younger person, I think, that I have addressed through psychotherapy. I think I used to be much more of a stressed-out, revving-high kind of guy and I have mellowed out a lot. I'm a lot friendlier. Less cranky, less grouchy. And she used to be a heavy drinker. Now she's not. She doesn't drink at all. It's great to see her really enjoying her musical career probably in a way she never has. I think she's really appreciative that she still has it and that she's completely sober and can enjoy it as a sober person. 'Cause you know, let's face it: when you're drunk or you're high, you forget a lot of stuff. I used to smoke a lot of dope. I don't do that anymore. I don't want to sound like some sort of judgmental tea-totaler, 'cause I'm not, but what can I say? It's better straight. It just is. You don't go through so many personality transformations via the chemical. You're just relying on your own god-given chemicals."

After the nearly constant touring, the Pixies have slowed down. They're approaching something of a crossroads. Like all reunion tours, they have to decide what to do next. "We'll do some sporadic touring," Black says, "a couple weeks here, a few days there, then if we tour Japan and Australia in the winter, we'll basically have played everywhere that we can play on the legs of this reunion status. Being that we've been offered really good fees to just play the old songs the last year, that's what we've been doing because that's where the demand is. So we're playing out that demand as long as we can without overstaying our welcome. After that, I think we'll have to either be very, very selective about what dates we play or we go record something. None of us has a real problem with making a record, it's just making a new record is potentially a problem." Black laughs at the thought. "It has to be good, you know? We don't really want to make a mediocre record. We don't want that stain on our record. It has to be very good. At the end of the day, whether we work hard on it or whether we record it all in one night, spontaneously, it doesn't matter. Whether it's a collection of waltzes or whether it's a resurrection of our former selves, whatever it is, it has to be good. "

Adding to the attention to the Pixies' once and future history -- and one of the high parts in Black's 24 months of highs and lows -- is Surfer Rosa's new gold status. "It took like 17 years, but I'm not complaining. It's the mark of a cool record -- one that sells, doesn't sell a lot, but steadily sells, year by year. It's always in print. It's always available, and it has a reputation. That is the most important."

A flip side of that high has been the low of the hiatus/demise of The Catholics. "I think we're kind of burned out on the whole Catholics thing," Black says. "A couple of 'em have gotten out of music and they're havin' families like myself. And a couple of 'em still are in music, but we worked together for a long time and it was a pretty tough little grind," he chuckles. "Me and the rhythm section, we played together for 10 years. That's a long time to be touring and trying to make a profit and drivin' around in a van all over the country and all over Europe, doing tour after tour after tour. It's fun, and it's honorable, but it's tough, too."

With the end of the Catholics and the Pixies touring more sporadically, Black would like to go out with the musicians on Honeycomb.

"They have expressed interest in doing it. That's half the battle," Black says. "But they're busy guys. They're hard to nail down. I think if the record does well, if it's well received, even if it's critically well received, I think it'll be that much easier to convince them to be a part of something. We don't have to do a really long tour, but I think I would like to do a few residencies in a couple nice towns. A residency in New York or Chicago or London. Five nights. That kind of thing."

There's also that other record waiting in the wings. Recorded at the same time and in the same town, it sounds in description closer to Black's usual SOP, although the reality is still anybody's guess. It's not finished. "I did make another record in Nashville in October with a couple of the same guys and a bunch of other guys," Black says. "Very different. We did it in one night. It was an all-night thing. I sang a gig and then I went to the studio, and so I think I need to redo a couple vocals. They sound a little tired."

Running through the last two years is a sense that Black has opened up to life. With the addition of a family, a band, near-constant press attention and, now, two new albums, it seems hardly necessary for Black to be up all night to sound a little tired. Does he feel a greater sense of responsibility to people, particularly fans, now?

"The only responsibility I have ever felt is to give people their money's worth," Black declares. "And, you know, I think all musicians want to do a good job. They want to make a good record. They want to stand on the shoulders of their giant predecessors. So, I guess if you want to call that a responsibility, that's the only other responsibility. The responsibility to your aesthetics, your art. I think it's nice that actors or other rock musicians more famous than myself use their position of the podium to address other things. I have nothing against that, but I feel like even if I was as famous as Bono -- and I have no criticism of him or his political stuff -- I feel like I would have to be the party spoiler. I would feel like it was my responsibility to go, 'You know what?'" Here Black blows a big raspberry. "'This is all bullshit! This is just playing music. Come on!'" Black laughs. "This is not a criticism of Bono. He's great. But I always appreciate the quip from someone like Bob Dylan. I remember reading an interview with him once and he said something like, 'Oh yeah. Everyone talks about how great the '60s was. I remember the '60s. The '60s sucked.'"

Black laughs at that bit, loving how the notoriously elusive Dylan falsely implicates himself. He might himself be, in his own words, "friendlier and less cranky," but that punk pixie lives in him yet.

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